Cotton stakeholders in Nigeria have agreed that Bt cotton
has the potential to revive the deteriorating cotton textile industry
in the country. A stakeholders meeting held in Abuja on November 8,
2017 attended by representatives from seed companies, government
ministries, agencies, and farmers resolved that embracing Bt cotton is a viable way of addressing cotton farming challenges.
Nigeria's
Minister of State for Trade and Investment, Aisha Abubakar, said the
country has no option but to embrace the technology to help improve the
lives of farmers and create jobs for the teeming population. "We cannot
allow people to import Bt cotton into Nigeria, we now have the people,
the technology, and the land to practice how to take full advantage of
the technology to address our own challenges," she said.
All
Farmers Association of Nigeria president, Arc. Kabiru Ibrahim, said
that it is important that Nigeria take its pride in cotton production by
embracing Bt cotton, and exuding confidence that it will alleviate
poverty among the farmers.
The National Biosafety Management
Agency approved Bollgard II cotton for on-station/on-farm trials in
Nigeria in 2016 and it is currently undergoing last stage of
multi-location trials in over 72 locations in the nation's cotton
growing zones. The project has already been endorsed by Agriculture and
Rural Development Minister, Audu Ogbe, and stakeholders in the country
are now strategizing on eventual uptake and release of Bollgard II
cotton to farmers.
For more information on biotech/biosafety developments in Nigeria, contact Alex Abutu at alexyabutu@gmail.com.

Researchers
from Queensland University of Technology (QUT) have developed and grown
modified Cavendish bananas that are resistant to the devastating
soil-borne fungus Fusarium wilt tropical race 4 (TR4), also known as
Panama disease.
Led by Distinguished Professor James Dale from
QUT's Centre for Tropical Crops and Biocommodities, the field trial,
which ran from 2012 to 2015 was conducted on a commercial banana
plantation that was previously affected by TR4. The soil was heavily
reinfested with disease for the trial.
In their world-first GM
field trial conducted in heavily TR4-infested soil, Cavendish Grand Nain
was modified by the researchers with the RGA2 gene, taken from the TR4-resistant wild, southeast Asian banana subspecies, Musa acuminata ssp malaccensis.
One modified Cavendish line (RGA2-3) remained TR4-free for three years
of the trial, while three other lines modified with RGA2 showed strong
resistance, with 20% or fewer plants exhibiting disease symptoms in
three years.
By contrast, 67%-100% of control banana plants after
three years were either dead or TR4-infected, including a Giant
Cavendish variant 218 generated through tissue culture in Taiwan and
reported to be tolerant to TR4. The researchers found RGA2 gene activity
level in the modified bananas was ‘strongly correlated' with TR4
resistance.
For more details, read the QUT news release.

Around
400 high school and college students and faculty in Laguna, as well as
regulators, researchers and scientists from the University of the
Philippines Los Baños (UPLB), were informed about various perspectives
on the international debate on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the special screening of the documentary film Food Evolution held on November 21, 2017 at DL Umali Hall, UPLB, College, Laguna. Food Evolution is
narrated by Neil deGrasse Tyson and features GMOs and its food
products, their contribution to food security, and how misinformation
affects public perception despite being scientifically documented in
terms of safety and benefits. The film showing was an activity for the 13th National Biotechnology Week which is celebrated on November 20-24, 2017 at Fisher Mall, Quezon City.
After
the film, the audience commended the balanced presentation of pro and
anti-biotech sentiments. They also asked the scientists about the safety
of GM crop planting and research. UPLB genetics professor Dr. Rita
Laude emphasized that GM crops in the market have been rigorously studied and tested by regulators.
The
activity was organized by SEARCA BIC, ISAAA, the International Rice
Research Institute (IRRI), CropLife Asia, CropLife Philippines,
Biotechnology Coalition of the Philippines, University of the
Philippines League of Agricultural Biotechnology Students (UP LABS), and
UP Genetic Researchers and Agricultural Innovators Society (UP GRAINS).
For more information, visit the SEARCA BIC website.

Various GE techniques such as CRISPR-Cas9 have been successfully employed for various crop plants including fruit trees. CRISPR-Cas9 holds great potential in GE due to their simplicity, competency, and versatility over other GE techniques. However, no such genetic improvement has been developed in date palm, an important fruit crop in Oasis agriculture.
The availability of the date palm full genome sequence opened up a new door for improvement of date palm through GE and genetic manipulation. High salinity, extreme drought
regimes, and blazing heat are major abiotic stresses affecting date
palm. Moreover, biotic stresses are also a major worry for date palm.
Developing a high yielding, resistant and good fruit quality cultivar is
imperative but demands a stringent, comprehensive and reliable
methodology.
However, several factors should be taken into
account to fully apply CRISPR to date palm breeding. This includes
designing the sgRNA to prevent off-target mutations as well as the
CRISPR-Cas9 cassette delivery method into date palm cells, both of which
are highly significant for the program to be successful. Date palm also
has some genetic characteristics that may affect the applicability of
CRISPR-Cas9, such as its outcrossing nature. This phenomenon brings high
allelic heterozygosity, polymorphism, and thus, genetic instability to
date palm.
The future application of CRISPR-Cas9 in date palm will
not only address the basic biological questions but will definitely
reduce the concerns of common people due to its non-GM nature.
For more on this review, read the full article in Frontiers in Plant Science.

This mini publication presents GE animals that have been
developed to address various concerns such as disease spread, food
production, and environmental pollution. Download a free copy of Pocket K 55 from the ISAAA website.

A large, prospective cohort study conducted among agricultural workers, farmers
and their families in Iowa and North Carolina in the United States
reports that there are no associations between glyphosate use and
overall cancer risk or with total lymphohematopoietic cancers, including
non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) and multiple myeloma.
The long term study updated the previous evaluation of glyphosate
with cancer incidence, and is part of the Agricultural Health Study
(AHS), a large and important project that tracks the health of
agricultural workers and their families. Led by AHS principal
investigator Laura Beane Freeman, the study results state that among
54,251 applicators studied, 44,932 (82.8%) used glyphosate. "Glyphosate
was not statistically significantly associated with cancer at any site,"
the study said.
For more details, read the free paper titled "Glyphosate Use and Cancer Incidence in the Agricultural Health Study" in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Scientists
from Wageningen University and Research have found natural genetic
variation for photosynthesis in plants and are unravelling it to the DNA
level. Led by Mark Aarts and Jeremy Harbinson, the research team has
shown that thale cress has various genes involved in adaptation to the
changes in the amount of light to which plants are exposed.
A gene that has been studied in detail is the Yellow Seedling 1
gene, which is involved in the adaptation of chloroplasts to light
changes. Due to a variation in this gene, some thale cress plants can
handle an increase of light (the difference between a cloudy and a sunny
day, for example) better than others. It is the first time that this
variation has been found in thale cress, but as the genes for
photosynthesis occur in nearly all plant species, the scientists expect
that a similar variation can be found in many other crops too.
The
discovery shows that it is possible to improve photosynthesis based on
natural genetic variation, something which was doubted until now. In the
long term, breeding on improved photosynthesis could make crops produce
more yield with the same amount of soil, water, and nutrients. This
brings the concept of ‘more' (yield) ‘with less' (soil, water and
nutrients) one step closer.
For more details, read the news release from Wageningen University and Research.

Scientists
from Ohio State University and Italian National Agency for New
Technologies have developed a "golden" potato with improved levels of
vitamins A and E. The result of their study is published in PLOS ONE journal. Potato
is one of the most widely consumed plant foods by humans, but it has
low levels of essential nutrients such as beta carotene (provitamin A)
and vitamin E. Thus, the researchers used genetic engineering
to boost provitamin A carotenoids and xanthophylls in potato, then
studied the bioaccessibility of the nutrients in boiled wild type and
golden (yellow-orange) tubers in a simulated digestive system.
Results
showed that a serving of golden potato can provide as much as 42% of a
child's recommended daily intake of vitamin A and 34% of a child's
recommended intake of vitamin E. They also found that women of
reproductive age could get 15% of their recommended vitamin A and 17% of
recommended vitamin E from that same 5.3-ounce (150-gram) serving.
Read the research article in PLOS ONE.

Rice grain with excessive cadmium (Cd) is a serious threat to health for people who consume rice
as a staple food. However, the development of elite rice cultivars with
consistently low Cd content is challenging for conventional breeding
approaches. Hunan Hybrid Rice Research Center researchers reported the
development of new indica rice lines with low Cd accumulation and no
transgenes. The team knocked-out the metal transporter gene OsNramp5 using the CRISPR-Cas9 system.
Analysis
of the new indica lines showed that Cd concentrations in shoots and
roots of the developed mutants were greatly decreased. Furthermore,
Cd-contaminated paddy field trials also showed that Cd concentration in
the grains of the CRISPR-developed lines was consistently less than
0.05 mg/kg. The plant yield was also not significantly affected in the
developed mutants.
This study presents a practical approach to
developing low cadmium indica rice cultivars that minimizes
contamination risk in grains.
For more information, read the article in Scientific Reports.

Messaging

Hybrid Rice In India-2016-Status

Government
of India has not fixed any target for increasing acreage of hybrid rice
in the country unlike Philippines. However, efforts are being made to
promote cultivation of hybrid rice through various crop development
programmes such as National Food Security Mission (NFSM), Bringing Green
Revolution to Eastern India (BGREI) and Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana
(RKVY).
From the initial level of 10,000 hectares in 1995, area under
hybrid reached one million hectare in 2006, Exceeded 2.5 million
hectares during 2014, which is about 5.6% of the total rice area in the
country. It has picked up during the last Eleven years, mainly because
of increasing popularity of hybrid rice in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar,
Jharkhand, Madhya, Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and it is estimated
that around 3+ Million Hectares is under Hybrid Rice cultivation in
India in 2016 which is around 7% of the Total Rice cropped area in
India.
With private sector playing a Major roll in Hybridisation of Rice,
The Hybrid Rice seed market has touched a 45000 + MT Volume sale, as per
An estimate.
Two MNC's and one Indian Majors in Hybrid Rice collectively occupy 50% of the market share.
The growth in 2016 can be attributed to significant increase under
Kharif acreage of rice due to abundant rainfall,after a consecutive two
years of drought and Growers shift from Inbred to Hybrid due to
problems faced last year with OPV's.
In rice, the main kharif cereal crop, the increase in acreage is
mainly on account of higher coverage in states such as uttar
pradesh,Madhya Pradesh (6.37 lakh ha), West Bengal (5.38 l ha), Assam
(4.11 l ha) and Bihar (3.90 l ha). On the other hand, Odisha (2.01 l ha)
and Telangana (1.12 l ha) have registered a drop in acreage.
Earlier in 2012, It was estimated that by 2016 Hybrid Rice would
cover an acreage of 5 Millian Hectares, How ever India lag behind much
in terms of reaching to that level."The main problem is that consumers
across have very different expectations of quality. Some like firm rice,
some like sticky rice. The breed should be able to solve that problem
each time they are producing a new variety," said Matthew Morell,
director general of International Rice Research Institute.
This can be attributed to the fact that Still 80% of the industry
depend on narrow genetic pool and lines developed way back in 1980. The
solution to Massive Hybridisation in Rice would be from new elite
germplasm that matches the quality requirements of Rice coupled with
much higher Yield advantage and value added traits which is very
impotent in the context of Indian Rice market.
Agrictultural experts are already tackling world hunger and climate
change - and now, new strains of high quality, environmentally-friendly
rice. And it shouldn't be too long before these new technologies being
developed make the move from the lab to the farm.
By 2020 Demand outstrips supply and In order to maintain self
sufficiency in India beyond 2020, It is crucial how fast Rice
Hybridisation Happens in India
Data compiled in association with Dr Jagadeesh.
(While the data contained in this post has been compiled with all
due care, The author does not warrant or represent that the data is free
from errors or omission, or that it is exhaustive.)

Norman Borlaug (born March 25, 1914) is an American agronomist, humanitarian, Nobel laureate, and has been called the father of the Green Revolution.[1] Borlaug is one of five people in history to have won the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal.

Borlaug received his Ph.D. in plant pathology and genetics from the University of Minnesota in 1942. He took up an agricultural research position in Mexico, where he developed semi-dwarf high-yield, disease-resistant wheat varieties.